


The Wisdom of Miryem Mandelstam (Miryem and the Purim Goblins, part 2)

by starfishstar



Series: Miryem and the Purim Goblins [3]
Category: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen, Women Being Awesome, Yiddish folktale retellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: “Teach us,” demanded a tall, bony goblin with blood-red eyes.“I couldn’t possibly. It’s an ancient magic belonging only to my family.”The tall goblin’s eyes sparked brighter, as if actual flames burned in their depths. “Name what you want in exchange,” he growled.
Series: Miryem and the Purim Goblins [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164557
Comments: 12
Kudos: 14
Collections: Purimgifts 2021





	The Wisdom of Miryem Mandelstam (Miryem and the Purim Goblins, part 2)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/gifts).



The early dusk of winter was falling as I gathered my supplies and set out toward the hill. The villagers clustered in the square, watching with worried eyes. A few fat droplets of rain began to fall, which boded well for my plan.

The rain became a steady patter as I crested the hill. The cave was not difficult to spot, a black maw that gaped from the far slope. I found a little ledge of rock under which I could shelter, near the opening, and listened.

There were goblins in the cave, no doubt about that. I could hear them chattering and cackling to each other. What’s more, I heard the whirl of groggers and the goblins’ shrieks of delight at the noise.

I set down my jar, pried open the lid and pulled out the long white gown the rabbi’s wife had loaned me. I was careful to keep it under the ledge, out of the rain, as I put it on. Then I entered the cave.

“Who are you?” shrieked the first goblin to catch sight of me, a little one with a pointed nose and wings like a bat’s.

“I’m a witch,” I said. “And my magic is more powerful than all of yours combined.”

“I don’t believe you,” grumbled a big, squat goblin, hopping closer to me. “Prove it. Show us your magic.”

There were dozens of goblins in the cave, all of them drawing closer to where I stood.

I spun, flinging my arms wide, letting what little light penetrated the cave catch on my spotless white gown. “You see? I walked here through the rain, but not a drop of it touched me. It’s an ancient magic, taught to me by my grandmother. Even among witches, this skill is very rare.”

I could hear murmuring that began far back in the ranks of the goblins and rolled closer.

“Teach us,” demanded a tall, bony goblin with blood-red eyes.

“I couldn’t possibly. It’s an ancient magic belonging only to my family.”

The tall goblin’s eyes sparked brighter, as if actual flames burned in their depths. “Name what you want in exchange,” he growled.

Ah, now I had them. I pretended to think. “The people in the village on the other side of the hill are very dear to me. For years, you’ve been stealing from them. Give back everything you’ve taken, their menorahs and Kiddush cups and Seder plates. Promise never again to steal their food or break the children’s toys. Then I’ll teach you my magic.”

The massed goblins grumbled, but the tall goblin silenced them with a look. “Think!” he commanded. “Think how much havoc we can wreak, how much terror we can inspire, if we are able to roam abroad at all times, instead of cowering inside when it rains.”

Cowed, the goblins obeyed him. They slunk about the cave gathering their stolen treasures, and soon a heap of the villagers’ belongings was piled at the mouth of the cave.

“Now,” I said, “I’ll teach you my magic. I’ll teach you how to dance between the raindrops.”

The rain outside was falling harder now, but within the mouth of the cave I demonstrated my imagined dance—more or less the grapevining steps of the hora, but the goblins didn’t need to know that.

“Now, you try,” I said. And they did, dozens of goblins of all sizes galumphing around the cave, bumping into each other and making a racket. “Very good,” I said, although it wasn’t. “Now, try it again outside and you’ll see how you can dance right between the raindrops, just like I did as I came here.”

In their zeal for learning this trick, they nearly barreled over one another as they poured out of the cave, shrieking triumphantly. But their shrieks soon turned to shouts of fear.

“You tricked us! What did you do, foul witch? The dance isn’t working! We’re melting!” Indeed, they seemed to be shrinking before my eyes, their skin contracting wherever the rain touched them. “Make it stop!” they cried. “Evil sorceress, make it stop!”

I stood in the mouth of the cave and shouted with all my might, “Only your greed is harming you! The dance of the raindrops won’t work for you as long as you intend to use it for ill. You must swear that you will never seek to harm your neighbors.”

“We promise,” they sobbed, stumbling back into the cave, sunken and sodden.

I pressed back against the edge of the cave’s mouth as the goblins streamed past me. “You swear you will never again steal from the villagers?”

“We swear!”

“You vow not to ruin their celebrations ever again?”

“Yes, yes, we will be good neighbors!”

“You must practice giving instead of taking. Learn to give your neighbors gifts at the holidays instead of stealing from them. You’ll know you’ve succeeded in overcoming your greed when you step outside and find the rain no longer harms you.”

“Yes, we understand,” sobbed the goblins, huddling together. “Now go away and leave us alone.”

“Gladly,” I said.

Outside the cave, I tucked the rebbetzin’s gown back into its jar, then I danced my way back to the village in the pouring rain, getting thoroughly wet and thoroughly enjoying the pleasant shock of cold rain against my skin.

The next morning dawned cold but clear. I showed the villagers where they could collect their belongings from outside the goblins’ cave. Then, as promised, the young man Moishe drove me to my own village, where I arrived in time to celebrate Purim with my family.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Miryem’s tale here is a mash-up of _Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins_ by Eric Kimmel, in which clever Hershel of Ostropol outwits a group of goblins that has been terrorizing a town and preventing them from celebrating Chanukah, blended with _The Rabbi and the Twenty-nine Witches_ by Marilyn Hirsh, in which a clever rabbi outwits a group of witches that has been terrorizing a town and preventing them from seeing the full moon. (Hm, I sense a theme!) And in general I did a bunch of (re)reading for context and ideas, including other stories of Hershel and Chelm from Eric Kimmel and, of course, stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. 
> 
> I also want to give a shout-out to the delightful picture book _The Castle on Hester Street_ by Linda Heller, in which a grandfather tells his granddaughter tall tales about his arrival in New York from the old country; after each fanciful recollection, the grandmother sets the record straight. (“No, we didn’t come to America in a flying cart pulled by a singing goat…”) In the end I didn’t manage to incorporate that book into these stories, but I like to think that the grandfather, in his youth, once met the legendary Miryem Mandelstam and had some tall tales to tell about her as well. :-)
> 
> A YIDDISH GLOSSARY, for any readers who may not already be familiar with the terms:
> 
>  **grogger** – a noisemaker used on Purim, to drown out the name of the evil vizier(!) Haman during the reading of the Megillah, i.e. the Book of Esther, i.e. the story of Purim.  
>  **hamantaschen** – triangular, filled cookies eaten at Purim, nominally in the shape of Haman’s three-cornered hat.  
>  **hora** – a traditional circle dance.  
>  **rebbetzin** – the term of address/title of the wife of a rabbi. However, I was casting about for how younger members of the community might address Miryem’s grandmother, and found that apparently this term could be used more broadly, as a sort of equivalent to “Mrs.” (Though of course now that I’m looking, I can’t seem to re-find where I first found that!)  
>  **rusalki** – Russian/Polish rather than Yiddish, but these are water spirits in Slavic folklore and seemed fitting when I was looking for region-appropriate beings with whom to populate this story.  
>  **Shabbos** – I went back and forth on whether to use the spelling “Shabbat” (what I use, and thus what feels natural to me to write) or “Shabbos” (how it was pronounced by my older Ashkenazi Jewish relatives, who were closer in time and geography to Yiddish traditions, even if no longer native speakers themselves). In the end, of course, Yiddish won out. :-)  
>  **tsimmes** – a stew or compote of dried fruits and root vegetables.
> 
> _(my Yiddish is of a fourth-generation passed-down sort, so please chime in if I’ve made any mistakes!)_
> 
> Also, here are the photo “credits” (if you can call it that, given that they’re all my own photos!)  
> 1\. A photo from the only time I’ve been to Vilnius; this is in the real-life Jewish Quarter, so, directly analogous to the quarter where Miryem’s grandparents live in the city of Vysnia in _Spinning Silver_.  
> 2\. This is from Poland rather than Lithuania, but it’s a lovely bit of bucolic countryside that served me well as the location for the shtetl plagued by goblins.  
> 3\. The goblins’ cave! …The photo is actually from England, not Eastern Europe, but what can you do? It’s the cave I had on hand. :-)


End file.
